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Our $100M Series B

oxide.computer

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Re: Our $100M Series B

#301

Post by tshaddox »

Aurornis wrote: post #230
diggan wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you remove that carrot, it just doesn't work How come it works for basically every other job on this planet? Developers aren't paid per feature implemented/bug fixed, and we still do those things, how come sales people are unable to do things for a fixed monthly salary?

Sales is unique because the monetary benefit to the company is mostly objective: If someone closes a $10 million sales contract, that becomes $10 million in revenue. If a team of developers work together to fix a bug, how would you calculate the revenue value of the bug and how would you distribute that to the team that solved it? Technically the value of a bug is negative because it costs the company, so do you subt…

A $10 million sales contract is objectively $10 million in revenue, sure, but it's silly to attribute that entirely to the sales person just like it would be silly to attribute it entirely to the engineers that built the product or the marketing team that bought billboards.

Re: Our $100M Series B

#302

Post by bpt3 »

cestith wrote: post #220
bpt3 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that's the same no matter if you work in sales, customer support or many other roles, a lot of people just care about the money with little regards to anything else, It's actually not the same for many roles. See the comments from people in this thread alone who scoff at the notion of maximizing compensation. I don't get it personally, but it's not an uncommon thought. > yet the sales department are the only on…

Even if your intent is to maximize income in customer support, you often don’t have the market option to do that. I have seen (and even worked at) places where chat support, phone support, and support administrators have a quota of chats, calls, or ticket responses and make bonuses based on how much they exceed their numbers. Unfortunately sometimes that results in people updating tickets several times an hour saying…

Almost every other role is at least one level removed from putting cash in the company's account, which is what leads to the shenanigans you described with metrics that are a poor proxy for revenue generation (and/or are too easy to game).

Re: Our $100M Series B

#303

Post by jeffbee »

bcantrill wrote: post #212
chubot wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it's very clear and logical ... but is it really "from first principles"? I thought that Oxide was based on OpenCompute, which is basically the rack designs that Facebook open sourced, after hiring some Google employees to build their custom data centers. This project started in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Compute_Project https://github.com/opencomputeproject Google definitely rebuilt the sta…

We didn't use anything from OCP. When we first started the company, we thought we might use the enclosure (and considered ourselves "OCP inspired"), but there ended up being little value in doing so (and there was a clear cost). And on the stuff that we really cared about (e.g., getting rid of the traditional BMC), we were completely at odds with OCP (where ASPEED BMCs abound!). So in the end, even the mechanical and…

How does the Oxide 48V architecture compare to what is known about the Google/OCP architecture? Does Oxide use single stage conversion, intermediate 12V buses, or ??

Re: Our $100M Series B

#304

Post by throwanem »

sunshowers wrote: post #298
throwanem wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, come on. Administrative overhead is a reality of business everywhere and at every level; the idea that to manage an organization somehow necessarily impairs it is absurd. So is purporting falsely to eliminate that overhead on behalf of others, when basic professional competence instead involves for oneself learning to minimize it - to dispose of it, not by panicking or catastrophizing or sweeping it under a rug,…

I moved from Meta, infamous for its performance reviews, to Oxide. The culture difference is night and day. The level of self-interested behavior seen at Meta just doesn't exist here. By the way, I received every rating from Greatly Exceeds (including an additional equity grant) down to Meets Most, and the rating I got overall had very little correlation with either effort or impact. I got Meets Most for some of the…

Well, sure. That's Meta, the model for much of the industry, where that isn't the likewise and just as deservedly infamous Amazon. So when you say Oxide is better, I'm sure I can believe you that it is, but can you see why that still might not convince? It's like if I say I'd rather be beaten than stabbed. Obviously this is the sensible choice to make among the selection given, but still the question might reasonably be asked: can there really be no third option?

Re: Our $100M Series B

#305

Post by ksec »

I am wondering what they have on Roadmap and if Zen 6 will come. Their AMD EPYC™ 7713P is 4+ years old already. Or is Hardware performance not a main focus for Oxide but Software that came with it?

In 2027 - 2030, We will have 256 Core Zen 7 CPU with PCIe 6.0 or 7.0 SSD and Network. If Liquid Cooling ever come to Oxide we are looking at 5 - 10x the compute power of its current hardware.

Somewhere along the line a Single Oxide Rack would offer enough Compute and Storage for 95% of customers. And whenever I think about having Solaris in every rack just put a smile on my face.

Re: Our $100M Series B

#306

Post by throwanem »

steveklabnik wrote: post #294
throwanem wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, come on. Administrative overhead is a reality of business everywhere and at every level; the idea that to manage an organization somehow necessarily impairs it is absurd. So is purporting falsely to eliminate that overhead on behalf of others, when basic professional competence instead involves for oneself learning to minimize it - to dispose of it, not by panicking or catastrophizing or sweeping it under a rug,…

The issue is, you're speaking from the position of the organization itself. Yes, staff work is just as important as line work. The issue with perf isn't that it's staff work, it's that people who are ostensibly hired to do line work are forced to do staff work just to keep their jobs. And sure, you can argue "tough, that's just life," but it's not hard to see why people resent it. They want to be writing code, not pu…

I see why people resent it; I'm saying they're foolish to do so. Why should I not seek involvement in staff work that determines so much of my future? Why should I not make myself responsible for the conduct of the business within the scope of my role, rather than just the parts which I happen to like and enjoy?

And since you can't seriously mean me to believe performance is not evaluated at Oxide, I really can't see how I'm meant to take any of what you're saying at face value. Instead it seems something much akin to "don't worry your clever little head about the boring ol' money stuff, darlin'! Don't you trust me to take good care of you?"

Re: Our $100M Series B

#307

Post by tock »

tshaddox wrote: post #296
tock wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because we can measure a sales person’s contributions in dollar amounts does not mean we must measure it in dollar amounts. This is the fairest form of compensation. It's unfortunate that engineering contribution cannot be measured the same way. If we could engineers would all be getting a nice pay hike.

It's still just a market. You've got to make offers that people will accept. It's mostly silly to try to come up with some objective theory of value, except in the context of what potential employees will consider to be fair, which is right back at "you've got to make offers that people will accept." Basing compensation on supposedly objective things like "the dollar amount a sales person brought in" might be importa…

I agree. But if employees know their objective value I believe it will change what they will consider an acceptable offer.

Re: Our $100M Series B

#308

Post by sailfast »

Is this a government run VC firm? Next gen In-Q-Tel? Makes sense for highly classified workloads on-prem and there’s a lot of demand for that.

Could be a need for unclassified workloads also… but curious if this is a defense and Intel community venture fund backing this next round with my tax dollars.

Re: Our $100M Series B

#309

Post by nemothekid »

rtpg wrote: post #232
benreesman wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a class thing. With the CoL in most SWE-heavy metros and the outright war on engineer pricing power over the last few years? Just about any engineer who isnt independently wealthy is: - recovering from layoffs and a period of unemployment at a high-COL cost structure - facing layoffs with the above salients - facing an imperative to insulate their fucking house with cash for their turn in the above crossha…

200k a year. In US dollars. American dollars. Now you have families, debt, etc. There are things. Minimum expectations for family etc. But come on! It’s not poverty wages! “I am willing to take a pay cut for a thing that I’m passionate about” is such a normal thing that everyone serious I know in this industry says. Or like… even just ethical choices to leave money on the table (there’s a reason online casinos pay th…

Focusing on the raw dollar amount is a red-herring that always comes up in these conversations. 200k is plenty! is a sleight of hand. If I am building something with 10s of millions of value and you give me 200k and expect me to shut up cause it's plenty, you are deceiving me, full stop.

The "we all get paid the same" is a dishonest by omission. They don't all get paid the same, and while the peanut gallery may think so, I sure as hell don't think the IRS thinks the same way.

I personally don't really care what they pay their engineers, but to pretend to have this egalitarian approach to compensation and then hide the equity numbers is dishonest.

Re: Our $100M Series B

#310

Post by MerrimanInd »

kierangill wrote: post #198
mystraline wrote: post #98

I applied here. Basically anti-llm long form one-sided interview writeup. Took them 3 months before a "we're not interested" email was sent. No reasons, either. I probably should have just used an LLM to generate good sounding garbage. Probably the same chance to get even a stage 1 interview.

I applied in early 2021. Getting rejected from any company carries a sting, but I was grateful to have gone through the process. I didn’t realize at the time, but Oxide’s application process was the best form of interview prep I’ve done. The process forced me to thoroughly document my values and career accomplishments. In later non-Oxide interviews, I effectively recited what I had written my materials. In that way,…

That's very interesting because in their episode on hiring practices they said that they hoped the materials would be a valuable exercise for anyone deeply engaged in a job search. Hearing that same feedback from the other side of the process really closes that feedback loop!
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